Google AdWords highly ineffective?

[Wolf]

Thanks Dave and Norri,

I like your suggestions Dave. No, Odaban is not fragranced.

I think I will have a look at this book.

I had a meeting with a guy specialising in viral marketing, unfortunatelly he never came back to me. Since my budget is limited, I have chosen an ad that should somehow get the business running. Odaban is published in the recent Huisgenoot magazine. I hope it'll show the desired effect on Monday. Also on Monday, the sales reps will start working in the western cape.

[derrickm]

Here are a couple of things you can do to improve your CTR:

Split your keywords into multiple ad groups

This is one of the first things you'll find in Perry Marshall's book.

You need to make sure that the keyword appears in the headline of the ads.

When I typed 'perspiration' into Google, I got this ad:

Sweat Through Your Shirt?
Stop This Embarrassment With ODABAN
Now Available in South Africa.
www.odaban.co.za

and when I typed in 'sweating', I got this:

No More Perspiration
ODABAN - South Africas Safest And
Most Effective Antiperspirant.
www.odaban.co.za

Google highlights the keyword if it's in the ad. In both of these examples, the keyword is not in the ad, so you're wasting this feature.

You need to have a separate ad group for each keyword or keyword phrase. That way, you can have 'perspiration' appearing in the perspiration ad headlines, and 'sweating' appearing in the sweating ad headlines.

Use the Google Keyword tool to find long tail keywords

The Google Keyword tool (under the 'Tools' menu) can suggest additional keywords to try. Look for 'long tail' keywords, like these:

                           CPC     Volume
deodorant sweating         0.51     1300
stop underarm sweat          -       880
excessive armpit sweat       -       880

CPC - Cost Per Click ( a '-' means that there is no information on the keyword)

Volume - Approx. average monthly search volume for South Africa

The Keyword Tool can suggest keywords based on what it finds on your website - select 'Website content' and enter your URL.

Use a powerful benefit

'Now available in South Africa' is weak.

'Guaranteed To Cure Sweating' might be better.

Your domain name is part of the ad copy
You might want to think about registering another domain name for your landing page. www.StopSweatingNow.co.za is available, for example. At R50 a year, it could make a big difference to your CTR. You might go as far as having a separate optimized landing page for each keyword group.

Your landing page affects your Quality Score, which affects your CTR

Google tracks things like how long people stay on your landing page - obviously, the longer the better. Although your site has plenty of depth to it, there's very little to immediately capture visitors attention and get them reading what you have to say.

Have a good look at these two competitors sites:

http://preventsweating.com/

http://www.notosweat.com/

You need:

1. A compelling headline.

"At Last! Discover An Amazingly Simple Method To Combat Sweat In Less Than Two Weeks... 100% Guaranteed!"

Eliminate Underarm Perspiration For A WEEK!

2. Testimonials
Both of the examples have a testimonial almost immediately after the headline. Yours are hidden away on another page. Notice the pictures.

3. Clearly defined benefits
Your benefits would be better listed as bullet points:

• The safest and most effective treatment for all perspiration problems
• Convenient and inexpensive
• The only antiperspirant guaranteed to work
• Unique, non-aqueous, silicone formulation helps prevent skin irritation
• Hermetically sealed container prevents damaging water contamination
• revolutionary pump spray also ensures an accurate and consistent dose
• Safe for children and those with sensitive skins

4. A call to action
Your site is informative, but in a rather corporate-brochure kind of way: "Have a look around our website, and if you happen to come across the order page, you might like to think about buying..."

Your landing page should accomplish one of two goals:

1. Get your visitors name and email address so that you can follow up with them - maybe offer a free sample (which doesn't last 6 months!) or a valuable free report in exchange for their name and email address.

or

2. Get them to buy something NOW.


I hope you find something in this post that you can use!

[Norri]

Great tips, Derrick Exo, pay close attention, Derrick knows his stuff!

[VinceYork]

Well all the above has given me great food for thought and even more research to do over the few hours holiday I hope I can take. LOL.

I have been battling to figure out how to get AdWords to be in my "affordable" favour but have also to undertake getting my site pages into a really appealing & sellable layout first. www.yorkaccounting.co.za
Spent the past few years learning html and now this dnn story (find it opens rather slowly) so am gradually on the way to a professional look.
Must see more on this perry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dave A]

Spent the past few years learning html and now this dnn story (find it opens rather slowly) so am gradually on the way to a professional look.

Dump it. Apart from being very slow to load (probably using too much processing resources on an overloaded server), the page might look pretty but navigation is hopeless. You need links in "news" blocks, not just in the top navbar. It took me a while to figure out what was going on.

If you want to use a simple CMS that is surprisingly effective, go with Wordpress.

[Wolf]

@ Derrick

Thanks a lot for your input, I'll try to get that done asap.